Gen. McMaster says Trump bears some responsibility for chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal

Retired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, who served as national security adviser under former President Donald Trump, said Monday his onetime boss bears some responsibility for the US’ chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

McMaster told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that the former president had made a decision to maintain a US presence in Afghanistan, but that Trump then changed his mind. The Trump administration ultimately entered into an agreement with the Taliban requiring US troops to withdraw from the country by May 2021.

“He couldn’t stick with the decision,” McMaster, who served as Trump’s national security adviser from early 2017 until April 2018, said on “AC 360.” “He didn’t stick with the decision. And I think people were in his ear and manipulated him with these mantras: ‘End the endless wars’ and ‘Afghanistan is a graveyard of empires’ and so forth.”

Asked by Cooper if Trump bears some responsibility for the heavily criticized withdrawal during the Biden administration, McMaster responded, “Oh, yes.”

Trump on Monday participated in a wreath laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia on the third anniversary of the attack at Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate that killed 13 US military service members.

Trump was joined by some family members of the fallen service members. The former president regularly attacks the Biden administration — and recently Vice President Kamala Harris, how his 2024 Democratic rival — over the chaotic withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.

McMaster, in his new book, “At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House,” wrote about his perception that Trump often sought the praise and approval of strong-men foreign leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Philippines’ former President Rodrigo Duterte so he could be seen as a similarly strong leader.

“I’m trying to explain really the strength in some of the aspects of the president’s character, but also the vulnerabilities. And of course at times I was reluctant to write some of this because I thought I don’t want to give if he’s reelected kind of a playbook of how you can maybe manipulate Donald Trump,” McMaster said Monday.

CNN’s Kate Sullivan and Peter Bergen contributed to this report.